Levels always too low - M-AUdio MobilePre

[benhome]

and it's not just the MobilePre - it seems like any time I want to record, I need to boost the levels to get a good signal.

Here's the trouble:

I have a dynamic mic in channel 2 and an instrument line into channel 1. I have to peg both levels on the MobilePre to get a faint signal in Ableton Live. The mic is worse than the line level, because a preamp is built into my acoustic guitar, which feeds the MobilePre input.

Still, even though the levels are low, I get distortion if I hit a chord too hard. So I'm getting all the worst parts of pegging the preamp and hardly any signal out of it.

There must be something I am doing that is fundamentally wrong.

 

[Mindset]

if you have your microphone into the line-in, it needs to be in the mic input. On channel 1, those should be mic inputs w/ phantom power. Your guitar should be plugged into the front channel 1 insert/line in

mic = either the 1/8th jack mic input in the back or the XLR inputs in the back
guitar = insert/line (channel 2? in the back)


reason is, a mic's sound level is lower then the line in level, so the input of the mic level (which you probably have your guitar plugged into) is amplified, as the line-in is not. So if you have your mic plugged into your line-in, then your mic's level will be lower, and you will have to turn it up, which your doing. and your guitar is plugged into the mic input (amplified) so when you hit a chord, it'll send a higher level signal into your amplified mic input, and your getting static & clipping etc...

 

[XLR]

It sounds like you're having typical gain staging difficulties. Identify all the points along your signal chain - hardware and software - where level is controlled, and make sure each is set for reasonable level without overloading at peaks. Almost every time someone posts a problem like this it turns out they were unaware of one of the stages and the gain was way off at that point, messing up everything else. It's a balancing act, but you want to end up with peaks around -10 to -20 dBFS in the recorded file.

Tim

 

[benhome]

Tim,

I think you're right. I'm not exactly new to recording, but this is my first USB unit. I've recorded with a Mackie mixer before and found that I needed to dial in the channel gain and balance it with the master to get a decent output without overload. So it sounds like there's a similar dialing in that I need to do with the software. I'll play around with it. I wish it were easier.

 

[dirtyp]

the pre clips at - 6 dbs in some daws and -5.4 in others.
Alot of people have the clipping problem. Its made like that for some reason.
Im having a problem with mine where it goes mute after a while.
tech support was useless.
So it might be the clipping or the signal. just thought i would shed some light on that.